KQED's Forum

Sacramento-based poet Alexandra Huynh says that poetry is a way both to acknowledge our reality and imagine a better world. Huynh, who was appointed the 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate last month, interweaves stories and images of fire in California, floods in Vietnam and the global impact of a single footprint. We’ll talk about her work, which addresses social injustice, the global effects of climate change and her Vietnamese American identity, and the importance of youth voices in poetry.

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Confronting the reality of climate change is often a terrifying and paralyzing activity. But, in the right hands, the story of our warming planet can be a tale of human ingenuity, resilience, and adaptability. Humans, for better or worse, find ways to adapt to almost anything, even the collapse of civilizations. Forum brings together two legendary local science fiction writers, Kim Stanley Robinson and Annalee Newitz, to get their incisive perspectives on the question of the long-term fate of humanity. We’ll talk about the future of the climate, past civilizations of the earth and the audacity of imagining that human beings might find ways to thrive later this century.

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Decades ago, when forest ecologist Suzanne Simard set out to understand why forests tended to heal themselves when left to their own devices, she uncovered early evidence that trees communicate with each other, lending mutual aid during times of duress. Over the years her research deepened and expanded, marked by discoveries that trees relay information through cryptic underground fungal networks and that old trees, known as mother trees, can discern which seedlings are their own and transmit food and water to them. We’ll talk to Simard about her work, and the intertwined story of her family, all chronicled in her new book “Finding the Mother Tree.”

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The Bay Area has recently been presented more as a bundle of problems than the generative, fascinating place that it’s been for decades. What are creators in the Bay Area thinking about the future of our cities? How might it change to be a better place for more of our residents? And what could Forum’s role be in building this community? These are some of the questions that Alexis Madrigal, Forum’s new host for the show’s first hour, will be asking of his guests. Spotlighting figures whose work on issues of economic justice, climate, design, and culture are driving innovation in the region, we’ll also be hearing from our Bay Area audience about what you want to hear. To begin, Forum co-host Mina Kim will turn the tables and interview Alexis about how he sees the Bay. What are your questions for Forum’s newest moderator? How should we cover the Bay Area? Who — or what — makes the it special to you? And what are the questions that intrigue and confound you about this region we call home?

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Of the 1,300 top Hollywood films of 2007 to 2019, just 44 featured Asian American and Pacific Islander lead actors, and of those only six were women. That’s according to a new USC Annenberg study that found a dearth of AAPI representation both behind and in front of the camera — as well as abundant on-screen stereotypical depictions that exoticize, hypersexualize or emasculate Asian characters. We’ll talk about the study and hear from actors, writers, directors and producers about their experiences of anti-Asian bias and stereotyping in Hollywood and what needs to change.

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Calling it “one of the greatest honors” he would have as president, on Thursday, Joe Biden signed new legislation to make June 19 a federal holiday. Known as Juneteenth, the holiday commemorates June 19th, 1865, the day when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas first learned that the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been signed two years earlier, had ended slavery. We talk about Juneteenth and the significance of it being recognized as a federal holiday. How do you plan to celebrate?

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Earlier this week, a video surfaced showing a man filling a bag with items in a San Francisco Walgreens then exiting the store on his bike with the stolen goods as onlookers and a security guard filmed him. This is the latest evidence of a problem that retailers say is driving them out of the city. Now, some in the retail and grocery industries are demanding a focus on solving these types of crimes and harsher penalties for theft. We discuss the scale of organized retail crime in San Francisco, what communities it’s targeting, and what can be done about it.

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Former Obama Administration official Andy Slavitt was one of the few outside health experts regularly talking to the Trump White House during the pandemic's first year, bearing witness to what he calls "missed opportunities, willful neglect, and indifference and denial from our president." During that time, as Covid-19 deaths skyrocketed, Slavitt began publicly documenting what he saw, and those observations form the basis of his new book "Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response." We'll talk to Slavitt about what could and should have been done to prevent such massive loss of life, and what governments still need to do to effectively contain the coronavirus.  

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As the lockdown ends, Bay Area arts exhibits and shows are re-emerging. Through a free app Kronos Quartet and Composer Ellen Reid present a curated, GPS-based experience that encourages reflection and exploration of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. How does it work, and why Golden Gate Park? We’ll speak with the team behind this new interactive experience.

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Across the Bay Area, employers in retail, restaurants and other industries, report that there are more jobs available than workers to fill them. As California re-opens for business, concern is rising that a labor shortage may impede the state’s ability to bounce back from the pandemic. While there appears to be no single reason for the worker shortage, economists say the high cost of living, wage stagnation, and worker demands are among the reasons that employees cite for not taking available jobs or even staying out of the job market altogether. We’ll talk to a panel of experts and hear from employers and employees about the latest labor dynamics.

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